This Week In Quotes: Nov 30 – Dec 6

In 1960, the percentage of the economically active 18-to-64 population receiving disability benefits was 0.65%. In 2010, it was 5.6%. — Michael Barone

Whites are 76 percent of the electorate over the age of 30 and only 58 percent of the electorate under 30. Obama won the “youth vote” because it is the knife’s edge of a demographic shift, not because he offered the kids free tuition and contraception (which they don’t need because it’s hard to have sex when you’re living with your parents at 27). — Ann Coulter

“It’s a cancerous cocktail where on the one hand everyone is supposed to be free to do whatever they wish, but on the other we all expect protection from the consequences of our actions.” — Nick Crews

The only problem is — and this is initially going to seem like heresy from a progressive is — the truth is everybody needs to pay more taxes, not just the rich. And it’s a good start. But we’re not going to get out of this deficit problem unless we raise taxes across the board, to go back to what Bill Clinton had and his taxes. And if we don’t do that, the problem is the pressure is going to be on spending even more. — Howard Dean

(Colin Powell), You’re a sheep in wolf’s clothing. Do us a favor and take off your mask. Admit you’re really a Democrat. Quit trying to pretend your opinions deserve more clout because you’re a Republican who hates his party and his country’s success on the international stage. And please, don’t ever endorse another Republican ever. If he’s actually worth electing, your endorsement will hinder his cause. — The Frederick Douglass Foundation of NY

In one of the more disturbing moments of my early Army training, a fellow JAG officer was going through the standard LOAC briefing (Law of Armed Conflict) and came to a slide explaining that we strictly comply with LOAC so that we won’t provide any justification for our enemy’s noncompliance. I raised my hand and – quite respectfully – asked when was the last time we fought an enemy who complied with the laws of war. The officer couldn’t answer. Simply put, almost a century of modern conflict has demonstrated that our compliance does not incentivize enemy compliance. — Kevin French

Rather, what immigration expansionists like Bush are doing, and have always done, is conflate immigrant policy with immigration policy. They’re saying that if you acknowledge that foreigners have souls then you have to support lax enforcement and unlimited future flows. But immigrant policy (how we treat people we have admitted to live among us) is distinct from immigration policy (how many such people to admit, on what terms, and how to enforce the rules). By conflating the two, expansionists engage in moral blackmail, asserting that those who want to change immigration policy are, by definition, anti-immigrant. By separating these two fields, we can make the case for a policy that welcomes foreigners – benevolently! – but limits their numbers, as you would guests in your own home. — Mark Krikorian

A college degree used to mean that a person would add on average $1 million to their income over their lifetime. Today a college degree only guarantees an average $300,000 in added income over a lifetime. — Ron Meyer

I think there’s always going to be a problem dealing with firearms, with knives. It’s the animal we are that cause the problems.” — Joe Namath

As baby boomers retire and health costs rise, this spending will mount. In 2010, there were 40 million Americans 65 and older. By 2020, that number is projected to be 55 million; by 2030, 72 million. — Robert Samuelson

Sequestration sounds like castration, only more so: it would chop off everything in sight. It would be so savage in its dismemberment of poor helpless America that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that, over the course of a decade, the sequestration cuts would reduce the federal debt by $153 billion. Sorry, I meant to put on my Dr. Evil voice for that: ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY THREE BILLION DOLLARS!!! Which is about what the United States government currently borrows every month. No sane person could willingly countenance brutally saving a month’s worth of debt over the course of a decade. — Mark Steyn

Generally speaking, functioning societies make good-faith efforts to raise what they spend, subject to fluctuations in economic fortune: Government spending in Australia is 33.1 percent of GDP, and tax revenues are 27.1 percent. Likewise, government spending in Norway is 46.4 percent, and revenues are 41 percent — a shortfall but in the ballpark. Government spending in the United States is 42.2 percent, but revenues are 24 percent — the widest spending/taxing gulf in any major economy. — Mark Steyn

No danger of that. If (in Milton Himmelfarb’s famous formulation) Jews earn like Episcopalians but vote like Puerto Ricans, Americans are taxed like Puerto Ricans but vote like Scandinavians. We already have a more severely redistributive taxation system than Europe, in which the wealthiest 20 percent of Americans pay 70 percent of income tax while the poorest 20 percent shoulder just three-fifths of 1 percent. By comparison, the Norwegian tax burden is relatively equitably distributed. — Mark Steyn

I believe the NRA is the new KKK. And that the arming of so many black youths, uh, and loading up our community with drugs, and then just having an open shooting gallery, is the work of people who obviously don’t have our best interests [at heart]. — Jason Whitlock

The U.S. Treasury’s “balance sheet” does list liabilities such as public debt, but it does not include the massive unfunded liabilities of Social Security, Medicare and other federal future obligations. A conservative estimate of Washington’s unfunded liabilities for the year ending in 2011 is $87 trillion. That’s more than 500 percent of our 2011 GDP of $15 trillion. — Walter Williams

Former Congressmen Chris Cox and Bill Archer have written an article – “Why $16 Trillion Only Hints at the True U.S. Debt,” The Wall Street Journal (November 26, 2012) – pointing out our dire economic straits. They say, “When the accrued expenses of the government’s entitlement programs are counted, it becomes clear that to collect enough tax revenue just to avoid going deeper into debt would require over $8 trillion in tax collections annually. That is the total of the average annual accrued liabilities of just the two largest entitlement programs, plus the annual cash deficit.” Let’s analyze that. — Walter Williams

Washington would have to collect $8 trillion in tax revenue, not to pay off our national debt and have reserves against unfunded liabilities, but just to avoid accumulating more debt. Recent IRS data show that individuals earning $66,000 and more a year have a total adjusted gross income of $5.1 trillion. In 2011, corporate profit came to $1.6 trillion. — Walter Williams

Households earning $250,000 and above account for 25 percent, or $1.97 trillion, of the nearly $8 trillion of total household income. If Congress imposed a 100 percent tax, taking all earnings above $250,000 per year, it would bring in about $1.9 trillion. That would keep Washington running for 190 days, but there’s a problem because there are 175 more days left in the year.

The profits of the Fortune 500 richest companies come to $400 billion. That would keep the government running for another 40 days, to mid-July.

America has 400 billionaires with a combined net worth of $1.3 trillion. If Congress fleeced them of their assets, stocks, bonds, yachts, airplanes, mansions and jewelry, it would get us to at least late fall.

The fact of the matter is there are not enough rich people to come anywhere close to satisfying Congress’ voracious spending appetite. — Walter Williams